First Experience: The 2019 Cadillac XT4

We cannot stop talking about the XT4, Cadillac’s exciting new luxury SUV. It’s the newest addition to their current lineup and Capital Cadillac was honoured to attend the first showing of it last month (August). We sent Sales Manager, Dillan Kuntz and our Cadillac Manager, Kevin Gatschene to Calgary, AB for a first-hand experience. Dillan explains just how amazing it was:

Tell us about the event.

“There were a few other dealership reps there from across Western Canada, [but] we were the only ones from Saskatchewan there.”

“There are [only] four XT4’s in Canada that are built and driveable and three of them were on this tour. [GM Canada] is going to be touring them all across the country to do training sessions with them, but ours was the very first stop, at the first city, so we were among the first people to get to drive these things. That was pretty awesome. It felt pretty good to know that off the hop.”

Describe the moment you first saw the XT4.

“It was pretty shocking, pretty exciting! We were a little scared that the XT4 was just going to be an XT5 but smaller. Pictures don’t do a lot of justice. It’s really not.”

“The headlights are kind of the new direction that Cadillac is going in. Everything new that’s coming out, is in this vehicle now. It sits lower, it’s still roomy inside and it’s really sporty looking.”

“It looked gorgeous and we were happy that Cadillac did enough to make it look like a different vehicle.”

“They colours they [brought] were Stellar Black, which is a shiny metallic black. The other colour was Shadow Metallica dark slate colour, and then there was a red one [called] Red Horizon. It’s a deep red, a super cool colour.”

“I didn’t see all the colours [in person] but from what I saw, I think I liked the Red Horizon the most. I think it was because the red one was done on the sport trim level so it had black taillights and body colour door handles and there was no chrome. Everything was red or black so it accents really nice. So the whole package looked really good.”

What is one cool feature in the XT4?

“One of the coolest features was called Active Thermal Management and what it does is when you start up an engine in winter, it circulates coolant through it all. As that coolant heats up, the air heats up inside of it and blows that air into the cab eventually. What it does is right when you start it up, the engine always gets really hot where the exhaust comes out, even if it’s minus 40, in a few seconds it still gets hot. It has a shut-off valve and it circulates coolant strictly in one area and that area only. So all the heat it gets off there in the first few seconds, it blows it right to the cabin right away. So within a couple of minutes, you almost have instantaneous heat, which was super cool. No one’s ever done anything like that before. Ford tried something similar to it at some point, but it had nothing to do with coolant or circulating liquid.”

“So you get heat really quick like that, but the reason why it’s Active Thermal Management is that after the cabin kind of gets to the right temperature, it heads to the transmission. It has a synchronized order that it has to go in and then when everything warm, it goes on as normal. But the biggest thing, especially in Saskatchewan, it heats up fast. Really quick heat. It’s almost like an AC system. You hit a button and you get the temperature.”

“[Cadillac] put a lot of new things in [the XT4] so that’s really cool. The motor is a completely new 2.0L Turbo motor that they’ve never done or had before. The ATS has a 2.0L motor, but this is a completely different one because they’ve never had a vehicle in this segment before. They’ve only ever had one SUV.”

He couldn’t resist adding one more innovative feature:

“It also has turning lights which are really cool. Not just the articulating headlights, but it’s got light on the sides. So when I turn the steering wheel to the left, the left side will light up. Just a lot of new things that are coming out that are really sweet.”

How does it compare to other vehicles?

“The XT5 is fairly big. Smaller than the Escalade, but it’s on the Acadia platform, so it’s a very big-looking vehicle.”

For customers who already own an SRX, we know you’ll appreciate the legroom in the XT4. To put it into perspective, the brand new XT4 is 9 inches smaller and has more legroom than the larger SRX vehicle! The XT4 is also a much lighter vehicle with the same amount of passenger space.

“We drove a Lexus NX 300, the main competitor for the XT4.”

The XT4 weighs less than the NX 300, can hold more passenger volume, and has a 9-speed transmission compared to the 6-speed Lexus is offering in this segment.

“[Cadillac] put a lot of new technology in the XT4, but they wanted to show us the differences between the two of them, so that was cool to compare.”

What does the future of Cadillac look like?

“Cadillac is rebranding and the idea is for the next three years Cadillac is releasing a brand new vehicle, not just a remodel, every 6 months. This [event] was kind of the kick off for the whole idea of it.”

“We’re really looking forward to the next vehicle coming out [after the XT4] which should be in Spring 2019. It’s an exciting time for Cadillac and we can’t wait to see the new and refreshed models.”

When can the public get their hands on one?

“We have about eleven ordered right now and probably [within] a month we’ll see the first couple come in. The price point on them is awesome. They start below the ATS price and basically, instead of a leather Terrain, you can get a Cadillac XT4 and all the Cadillac stuff that goes with it: the warranty, the maintenance program, all that extra stuff.”

Capital Cadillac In Regina

If you’re interested in learning more about the new luxurious SUV Cadillac has to offer or maybe looking to pre-order, don’t hesitate to contact us! We hope to see this “truly amazing” vehicle, as Dillan calls it, in October 2019.